Teaching foreign languages in pedagogical institutions

One of the most important trends identified in the 21st century has become a tendency that can be called integration; - it concerns the humanization of technical education and the informatization of humanitarian education. The pursuit of integration is the reverse side of differentiation, which is partly due to the growing gap between the pictures of the world of people of a humanitarian and technical mindset due to technological progress. Another feature of technical development at the present time is that it is ahead of its meaning and goal setting: a person does not have time to comprehend the possibilities of existing technologies, as new ones immediately appear.

METHODS

The use of information and communication technologies in teaching and learning foreign languages has risen sharply among the educational community. Teachers access and implement innovations without always realizing their full implications for them and their students. However, this is not necessarily a negative thing, because if no one used innovations, little progresses would be made and there would be nothing to evaluate. The article presents certain features of ICT that can be used to good advantage in a rich learning environment, and the use of video as an ICT tool in the foreign language class. The paper also discusses the role of the teacher in implementing technologies and we argue that it is the teacher, not the technology who determines the quality of the learning and teaching. There are people who are afraid that the teacher’s role would be compromised if we integrate information communication technologies in education; however we militate for a ‘techno-humanistic’ system, in which teachers, learners and technology would form a lasting meaningful alliance.

In addition, back in the 80s. Twentieth century one of the leading researchers of the problems of psychology of higher education A.A.Verbitsky considered emerging trends in education, highlighting, in particular: computerization and the accompanying technologization of education, contributing to the intellectual activities of modern society; the transition from predominantly information-communicating, traditional forms to active methods and forms of education with the inclusion of elements of problem, scientific search, wide use of reserves of independent work of students. We see how the indicated tendencies of integration, computerization (informatization), individualization of education are realized today.

As for the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in teaching foreign languages, it should be noted that both teachers and many students, realizing the enormous potential of new technologies, tend to one of the extremes: they fully support the introduction of ICT into the educational process or with great caution approach to unusual means of work for them. ICT enthusiastic teachers often consciously or unconsciously rely on the significant role of technology in individualizing the educational trajectory of students and in developing their motivation to learn. In the English method of teaching languages, much attention is paid to the notion of “learner autonomy”, i.e. autonomy, autonomy of students. It is understood as the independence of the student from the teacher and implies the ability ofthe student to take an active part in setting the goals and objectives of the training, to assess their knowledge and skills, to independently learn foreign languages. But the question is, are students ready for increasing responsibility and independence, and are teachers ready to change interaction scenarios in the context of the modernization of education?

We believe that in order to correctly answer this question, you need to rely on the practice and scientific work, revealing the essence of the changes and psychological and pedagogical problems existing in this field. As an example, the studies of French scientists: Alex Boulton, Anne Chateau, and others. In their work “Learning to learn languages using ICT - but how?” Researchers describe their experience of using ICT in teaching different groups of foreign language students. Their arsenal included the Langues-U digital campus, ERUDI Resource and Distance Learning Center (erudi.free.fr) with the ability to communicate in chat, forum or by e-mail. Three different groups of students were studied: the first group consisted of masters psychologists who needed English for professional purposes (60 people), the second group included linguistic students specializing in English and distance learning (180 people), and the third group included trainee teachers who were offered the opportunity to participate in blended learning (their ultimate goal was to pass a competitive selection at theend of the year). Both qualitative and quantitative research methods-polls, questionnaires, etc. - were used. The following pedagogical and psychological aspects can be distinguished in the researchers' conclusions.First, the majority of students did not have enough computer literacy, thus, the need was identified for conducting computer training courses, including the use of the proposed network technologies.

Secondly, many mentioned the feeling of loneliness, isolation (isolation), although there was the possibility of both virtual communication on forums, in chat rooms, and personal (for students with a mixed type of education). Sometimes this form of training was perceived even as demotivating. 20% of linguistic students have never started a new topic in the forum, and 30% have never responded to messages from other students.

Third, despite the fact that the Langues-U digital campus presented both traditional tasks (lexical and grammar exercises) and multimedia tasks, including authentic audio, video and texts with the attached tasks, many students focused on more familiar ones. analytical exercises (for example, one third of the masters psychologists did just that).

Here you can recall the results of the research of M.K. Kabardov, who revealed that people characterized by an analytical type of intellectual activity, “thinkers”, are more capable in traditional forms of teaching a foreign language than in active ones. There is no doubt that effective learning is based on many factors, including on the individual psychological characteristics of students, but in this case, it’s rather a matter of tough language learning strategies based on passively following the teacher’s instructions. It should also be noted that teaching strategies for working with the proposed language resources was present in a separate module, but most students ignored it, considering it a waste of time, and passed directly to the content part.

Thus, we see that many students were not ready to fully use the freedom of choice offered to them, experienced a sense of abandonment, reluctantly accepted tasks where there was an element of self-esteem, trusting the teacher’s assessment more. In the terminology of J.M. O’Malley and A.W.Shemot, distinguishing metacognitive, cognitive and socio-affective learning strategies, namely metacognitive strategies, including planning, self-control and selfesteem, and social-affective strategies associated with working with other people, as well as the formation of psychological readiness to perform a particular task, were extremely necessary in the mixed and distance learning of English. Taking into account the increasing trends of informatization of the university, we believe that the question is not whether or not ICT should be introduced into the educational process at the university, but the need for this, as well as various aspects of using ICT tools for teaching foreign languages are studied in works E. S. Polat, R.K. Potapova, J. Underwood, C.Chapelle, and others. The question now is where the boundaries between ICT use and technophile, between individualization and isolation, between choice and redundancy of choice, between learning in collaboration and imitation of that are.

CONCLUSIONS

Teachers, learners and technology should form a lasting meaningful alliance. Having identified the positive and the negative impacts of integrating information communication technologies in teaching and learning foreign languages, and also the importance of the teacher’s role in educational process, and the bond that creates between teacher and learner, I argue that we cannot forget the past and the years of research of good teaching practices developed by skilled teachers and researchers, but at the same time we cannot ignore the reality beyond the classroom walls. I agree with the view according to which the educational system needs no revolution, i.e. no sudden, radical or complete change, but a skilful evolution, that will assure a continuity and stability to the learning environment. We should carefully build and develop this “techno humanistic” system based on what it already exists

Therefore, we believe that the main task at this stage of introducing ICT into the educational process is to identify the necessary conditions for effective foreign language teaching based on ICT by analyzing the existing psychological and pedagogical aspects of the individualization of education. These conditions include both objective factors (availability of material and technical base and teaching methods) and subjective ones (information competence of teachers and students, their motivation and psychological readiness to accept new scenarios of interaction in the context of modernization of education). In the future, it is planned to consider in more detail the necessary competencies and strategies for learning a foreign language on the basis of ICT and the possibility of teaching students the most effective strategies.